China's Spring Festival happens to be in the winter when respiratory diseases are high, and it is not uncommon to be infected with a certain fungus after drinking, and how long can you use cephalosporin antibiotics after drinking is an important question.
Written by |Li Changqing.
Talk show actor Yang Bo's "cephalosporin drinking" incident hyped the disulfiram reaction, which was originally a medical topic worth discussing during the Spring Festival, into a hot topic in advance.
Because Yang Bo publicly stated on Weibo that after "cephalosporin on alcohol", "except for a little stomach discomfort, there is nothing at all", many popular science articles have focused on how serious the consequences of "cephalosporin on alcohol" are, under what circumstances there will be serious problems, whether there will be deaths and other extreme situations. Most people may know that they can't drink alcohol for a certain period of time after taking cephalosporin antibiotics, but as the Spring Festival approaches, there is another question that really needs to be discussed, that is, if a person has a certain infection after drinking alcohol and needs to receive**, can he still use cephalosporin antibiotics?
There has been a previous round of discussion on this topic. In the early summer of 2019, a "encounter" by the chief expert of Beijing Xuanwu Hospital** was swiped** and self-swiped, and the content was roughly a self-report that in December of the previous year, she was given first aid after taking a cephalosporin antibiotic after drinking. Dr Ling believes that the incident may have been caused by a disulfiram reaction, citing that she had drunk a glass of red wine the day before the accident. Related news is also headlined: "How scary is eating cephalosporin after drinking?!" Doctor ** 24 hours of life and death.
At that time, many doctors pointed out that Dr. Ling's condition was most likely a drug allergy rather than a disulfiram reaction, for the following reasons: first.
1. The cefuroxime taken by Dr. Ling does not contain a chemical structure that can cause a disulfiram reaction; Clause.
Second, Dr. Ling's symptoms were more like typical allergies than disulfiram reactions; Clause.
3. Disulfiram reaction mostly occurs after taking cephalosporin first and then drinking, and generally does not occur after drinking without any symptoms of drunkenness and taking medicine after a period of time.
However, the focus of ** is on the disulfiram reaction, and there are articles suggesting that "it is dangerous to eat cephalosporin after drinking", "you can't drink alcohol within a week after taking medicine, and you can't eat cephalosporin within a week after drinking". Not to mention that Dr. Ling's illness may not be related to drinking, and even if it is, there is no scientific basis for suggesting that there must be a one-week gap between taking medicine and drinking. Spreading the wrong advice with the wrong cases is one mistake on top of the other.
The interaction between drugs and alcohol during metabolism is very complex, and there is no one time interval limit that fits all drugs. In the case of disulfiram, the main agent of the disulfiram reaction, the Mayo Clinic recommends not drinking alcohol while taking disulfiram and for two weeks after stopping it. Metronidazole, a commonly used antibiotic that can cause a disulfiram reaction, requires that alcohol be stopped for 48 hours. The most discussed cephalosporin antibiotics are much more complex, with some drugs that are considered not to interact with alcohol and are safe to take, such as the commonly used cephalexin. Other cephalosporin antibiotics, such as cefoperazone, which are more common to have a disulfiram reaction, may be detected by alcohol consumption during and within five days of stopping the drug.
The essence of the disulfiram reaction is that the drug affects the metabolism of alcohol, and the intermediate product of alcohol metabolism, acetaldehyde, accumulates in large quantities, so the symptoms are basically the same as drunkenness, including nausea, dizziness, flushing, and in severe cases, coma and low blood pressure. Since the principle is that drugs affect alcohol metabolism, it can be seen that symptoms usually occur when drinking alcohol during the period of taking the drug or when the drug has not been metabolized after taking the drug. If you drink alcohol first, the alcohol has not yet been metabolized, and you are still in a drunken state, and there will be a reaction when you take medicine.
But after most people drink alcohol, the alcohol will be metabolized within a day or two, and basically there will be no more drunken symptoms. In addition, for chronic alcohol abusers, because of the induction effect of long-term drinking on the liver metabolic enzyme system, the metabolism of many drugs in the body will be accelerated.
Therefore, even antibiotics that can produce a disulfiram reaction do not need to be consumed for a week after stopping the drug. However, considering that antibiotics must be eaten, alcohol is not required, and it is still a good thing to drink less, for the sake of insurance, it is not impossible to uniformly require that alcohol should not be drunk during the period of taking the drug and within a week of stopping the drug. There are also other medications, and it is recommended to abstain from alcohol for longer than a week after stopping the drug.
The problem lies in the advice not to take antibiotics for a week after drinking, which is not only incorrect, but can also have an impact on normal illness**. If a patient has a bacterial infection that happens to be susceptible to antibiotics associated with the disulfiram reaction, refusing to use the appropriate antibiotic because of such advice may have a negative impact on the disease**.
The Chinese New Year coincides with the winter season when respiratory diseases are high, and it is not uncommon for people to be infected with a certain fungus and need antibiotics within a few days after drinking.
This article is supported by the Science Popularization China Star Program Project, produced by the Science Popularization Department of the China Association for Science and Technology, supervised by the China Science and Technology Press, Beijing Zhongke Galaxy Culture Media***